Cubs-Brewers, Sept. 23, 1998, in the teeth of a pennant race. Cubs up 7-5 in the bottom of the ninth. Two outs, bases full of Brewers, Geoff Jenkins at the plate. Jenkins hits a fly ball to left, to Brant Brown.

I remember being confused at first. Before Pat Hughes had even begun describing the play, Santo was already well into the third act of La traviata, and it was as if something had detonated in my room.

So it wasn't Red Barber. So it wasn't the sober analysis you might want out of your color guy. But I'll be damned if there was a better call for that moment. The first "no!" was instinct; the second was the martyrdom already setting in. The distance between the two is more or less the measure of Cubbiedom. RIP, Ronnie.